William Herschel discovered NGC 5417 = H III-11 = h1730 on 23 Jan 1784 (early sweep 109) and recorded "a nebulous star, extr obscure or faint." CH added the note "The RA was not taken at the moment and was marked as very uncertain." There is nothing at his RA, but 1 min 15 sec of time preceding is UGC 8943. JH made 4 observations and his mean position matches UGC 8943.

400/500mm - 17.5" (6/8/96): fairly faint, fairly small, elongated 2:1 NW-SE, 1.2'x0.6'. Sharp concentration with a small, bright rounder core. A 10' string of mag 12-13 stars precedes the galaxy with a mag 10 star at the west end. A second mag 10 star is 5.7' SW. NGC 5418 lies 21' S.

Notes by Steve Gottlieb